50 essential Beatles facts

Paul McCartney’s journey to permanent bass player – essentially taking over from original bassist Stuart Suttcliffe once he’d left the band in Hamburg – is well known.

But less often reported is Chas Newby’s role in Beatle history. A friend of original Beatles drummer Pete Best, he played four gigs as The Beatles’ bass player in 1960, and John Lennon even asked him to return with them to Hamburg for their second trip. Newby chose to return to university, and later became a maths teacher.